"And that's what Scotty did not use a replicator for parts..." Topic

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Interesting article on 3d printing.

How could they be hacked unless they were connected to the web or there's a spy on the inside of the organisation?

Spies are spies and will have to be dealt with like they always have been, I guess. But why any government defence organisation allows their machines to be connected to the outside world astounds me. The best fire wall is an actual firewall (ie one made of cement and stuff) with no wires passing between it and the outside world.

If I was running an industry like this I'd think twice about being connected to the national power grid (having my own generators, etc) never mind a connection to the whole world's computer network…

John T

Most "hacks" are social hacking (using real life to ferret out info through connections and people.

Yeah, actual hardware firewalls beat data firewalls – better yet, no direct connection beats it again. You'd think a defence contractor would know stuff like this.

@John: But we're old fashioned older generation people who know that the internet is as leaky as a sieve. :D

Spot on, chromedog!

John T

The problem is that a lot of the new 3d printers are running wireless network cards (to save the effort of needing to run network cables to them). So your production area needs to have some kind of wifi shielding around the outside.

I think there also needs to be a way to tell those printers which router they are allowed to talk to. I know that you can set up your wireless router to only talk to certain network cards (by MAC address, which is basically the chip's serial number), but that security needs to go both directions. If the only router that the printers will talk to is the one bought by the company (and is on an isolated system or at least company intranet), there's no way to hack into and mess with the files!

Wireless? Two words:

Faraday cage!

John T